Reactions

I think that both this article and the analysts missed some important points:

This article states that the X is not the first or only $1,000 phone. That's true -- I paid close to that (with Apple Care and tax) for my 6+. But, it is the first iPhone where $1,000 was the STARTING point, the low end price.

Conversely the analysts focus on the X as being "THE" new iPhone. They missed the point that Apple greatly expanded the newer marketing strategy they've been dabbling their toes in: Market a high end device at a premium price while offering lower end and/or older technology at "consumer" prices.

So yes, the X is a premium device at a premium price and, as such, it WILL have a more limited market share. But, Apple has covered that in every increment all the way down to the SE. Specifically, Apple's base prices for its phones are:

X $999

8 $699

7 $549

6S $449

SE $349

That's a 300% spread in the price range. The X costs (nearly) 3 times that of the SE.

It seems (to me) that, IF there was any hesitancy to go for the X it was less due to its actual price than the $300/43% leap from the 8 because, while the 8 lacks some of the bells and whistles it sports the same power train and, for many, makes for a better buy. So any lack of sales of the X were made up for by the 8 (or lower).

So, all in all, any analyst who focuses on a single iPhone model is presenting a flawed analysis because Apple has left that single iPhone marketing strategy in the dust. You now have to look at the entire line-up. Looking at iPhone X sales is no more accurate than looking at SE sales.

We fought this battle back in the 70's & 80's trying to protect American Steel... Now the Mon river is lined with beautiful trees instead of ugly steel mills... Well, there are a few ghettos along the way: Homestead, Braddock, McKeesport, Dravosburg, Clairiton.... Globalization & free trade did not kill those mills, it was a response to their death after they were killed by foreign competition -- and it was a key part in rejuvenating a failing economy.

Protectionism didn't work then. It won't work now no matter how loud we chant USA! USA! USA!...

This is a huge problem in the western world. The Chinese are stealing from companies and universities. The only solution is to stop giving visas to Chinese nationals but that will unlikely never happen.

Yeh, yeh, yeh.... That's what we said 40 years ago when the Japanese were supposedly copying our stuff and selling it back to us. It turned out, they were just better than us.

Today there was an article about former American intelligence agents pulling in $200-$400K salaries for spying on America for the UAE using American spy techinques.

How can the watch's sensors measure blood pressure? Surely some constricting cuff has to be involved?

That is how peripheral blood pressure is monitored now. But for "real" pressure you need centrally measured -- which does not involve a cuff -- but generally involves an ICU. (So it IS possible).

One method might be to measure the dilation of arteries during blood flow. But that would be tricky because it can be affected in the short term by both diet and exercise: vigorous aerobic exercise releases factors and hormones that cause both vessel dilation and constriction (depending on the vessel) while the Sausage Bisquit that follows causes constricted dilation during systole.

...the right-wingers... ...FakeNews and Alternative Facts their belief system is founded on...

Do you want to go, little man? Because we will fucking rumble so hard that you’ll physically tear up as you type, “I’m not going to reply to you anymore,” in a vain effort to salvage the nonexistent dignity of your worldview. Don’t type it again.

FoxNews

Fox isn’t right wing and it isn’t 2002 anymore. That canard will get you nowhere. Try harder.

Originally Republicans had gone so far right that they called honest reporting and moderates all "Liberals". Now, they have gone so far over the edge that they're saying Fox News is not a right wing propaganda site? That's hilarious! No, actually that level of delusion is kind of sad. Sort of another "alternative fact". But then, as I said: their whole belief system is based on Alternative Facts.... SAD! --- because they're getting so defensive about it...

This comparison reminds me of the days when Phil would do a speed test on stage with the latest and greatest PC versus the Mac, and the Mac would always win. It was a smack down.

I think the best thing we can do as a computer community is show Apple that they persistently come up short, and that engineers ought to actually focus on the best specs possible, rather than settling for average or bare minimum for a premium price point.

I'd love to see Phil out there again with a MacBook Pro trouncing the competition like they did in the old days. Sadly, when all of the components are off the shelf compatible to every other manufacturer, Apple would have to make the conscious decision to spec out a laptop with that specifically in mind, and it's my opinion that Apple engineers have no plans to be the best in regard to performance.

I am aware that a critical component to functionality is the OS itself and Windows 10 has made significant improvements in stability from what I've read. MacOS is stable, and functional, while I believe we're well past the days of seeing significant improvements and speed increases from one version of the OS to another. Most of us run the latest version and it "just works", much to our daily contentment. I feel the significant disparity is revealed in speed of workflow throughput. We've seen 4k become the standard for video, and HEVC has proved a significant space saver while remaining visibly lossless to the average user, yet creating more work to be done by the CPU and GPU. I have not seen a noticeable speed improvement with the change of filesystem to APFS either. When we're seeing other laptops outperforming the MacBook Pro, it's not only a loss of pride in the brand we choose to spend our hard earned money on, it's also taking more time because the laptops we're offered by Apple Engineers are less capable than those by other manufacturers.

It has been my opinion, for several generations of Mac products, that Apple Engineers have cared significantly less about performance, and more about esthetics. While Apple laptops look nice, they fall short in providing the best performance for their Prosumer users, which is truly unfortunate for those of us who refuse to leave the Mac ecosystem. When the components of laptops are largely from the same vendors and assembled by other manufacturers, it's harder to differentiate them. While I hope Apple persists in incorporating more of their own chips into their products, I am finding it difficult to imagine the day when Phil will be back out on that stage showing us the Mac trouncing the PC once again. At least the Mac will look nice though.

Not that I disagree with anything you said, but comparing MacOS to Windows only on the basis of stability, is only part of the equation: MacOS is generally more user friendly and world's more secure. For me, security is a major selling point. (On the other hand, Windows has more "apps" available).

And too: Don't forget the entire Apple Ecosystem that simply doesn't exist in the world of Windows. I love how my Apple Watch unlocks my MacBook and how my messages flow between my Watch, my phone and my MacBook - etc, etc, etc,....

And, even on the strictly hardware basis: Apple tends to provide products that go beyond simple glitzy technical features and instead fit the needs of the user. It's what set Steve apart: The blend of technical guru and artsy/humanities genius where he could blend the two to come up a product that was greater than the sum of its parts. Apple continues to do it on their other products but has been falling off lately on their Mac line. I have confidence that they'll get the mojo back (even if they stick to off the shelf components).

Are there health monitoring functions that could be more easily implemented in AirPods than in an Apple Watch? Or would these features be redundant to what is already available in AW but at a potentially lower cost or maybe attractive to people who have no interest in a watch but would wear AirPods?

One thing that they could easily(?) do because it uses currently available technology is body temperature.

And, one application for that would be in endurance athletes where it can be a problem. A life threatening problem.When I worked the medical staff of the Pittsburgh Marathon a few years back the biggest concern was over heating -- and we brought in water/ice baths to the medical tent to deal with it. But, regardless, we still sent a dozen runners to the hospital with internal temperatures over 112 degrees -- which is well into life threatening range. While any one of them or all could have died, all were saved with no known lasting debilities.

And, I myself in the last race I ran last fall underestimated the heat from the open sun of the course and dehydrated and overheated myself. There was no medical tent there to check me or treat me -- so I instead spent an hour or so in the shade sipping fluids till things got back to normal. If I had had a way to check my temperature while running I would have paid more attention to hydration which could have avoided the situation.

Unfortunately, on the flip side, most races discourage or ban any form of ear pods for safety reasons.

LOL.... From the company that drove around neighborhoods scooping up unsuspecting people's data from their WiFi signal, stored it on their servers and then, without deleting it from their servers, claimed it was the work of a "rogue programmer" and "we didn't know anything about it".

Now, they want to scan not only my emails but ALL of my information -- pictures of where I've been and my financial information?

Sure, yeh, go ahead. We trust Google! What could possibly go wrong?

(People hyperfocus on Apple hardware -- but it is their assurance of privacy that may be their biggest asset.)